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Friday, 17 December 2010

In a previous post I argued that Humanists should be concerned about the international prohibition of recreational drugs. I cited evidence to show that the 'war on drugs' has been lost and that much of the harm associated with drug use is due to illegality not pharmacology. I did not make the libertarian case; though humanists ought to take it seriously.

I did not and never have claimed that the use of street drugs was risk-free. I've always believed that heroin, for instance, is very harmful to most of its users. But cannabis is surely different. When I first became interested in this topic - 40 years ago - the evidence against cannabis seemed very slight - and generally contradictory. Yet I've had to accept from more recent evidence that cannabis use is associated with an increased risk of psychosis.

So I was wrong? Sort of. But the truth is more complex.

Cannabis has several active ingredients notably tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). Laboratory and field studies show that it's THC that creates the risk of psychosis whilst CBD has a protective effect.

Over the years the 'hash' and 'grass' of my youth have been replaced by 'skunk'. Skunk contains a higher concentration of THC than the hash of yesteryear and, critically, much less CBD. It's therefore much more likely to provoke psychosis.

This change in composition is not some random effect of climate or fashion; it's a consequence of prohibition. Over the years street cannabis supply has switched from imports from high hills in hot countries to domestic cultivation under intensive lighting. The intensive lighting appears to drive the replacement of CBD by THC.

This would probably not have happened without prohibition and if it had happened in a regulated market then the regulator could have intervened to reverse the trend.

The current incidence of cannabis-related psychosis is therefore a consequence of prohibition. There would be some cannabis-related psychosis in a regulated legal market - cannabis is not risk-free - but if we care about health we will abandon prohibition and seek a policy that might reduce the harm from drug use.

Monday, 6 December 2010

I’m a Scientist get me out of here is a science dialogue event where school students talk to real scientists online for two weeks. It’s in the form of an X Factor style competition between scientists, who compete for a prize of £500.

For two weeks students read about the scientists’ work, ask them questions, and engage in live text chats with them. The students vote for the scientist they want to get the money. The scientists with the fewest votes are evicted until only one is left to be crowned the winner. The event is supported (by Wellcome Trust) by carefully developed and tested resources which develop students’ skills and deepen their understanding.

Ceri Thomas won £500
in the Evolution Zone of
I'm a Scientist Get Me Out of Here!

Ceri Thomas says 'My favourite thing to do in science is talk to other people about ideas- good ideas, bad ideas, crazy ideas- communication is one of the best ways for scientists to discover new things and challenge their own perceptions about problems. I love learning something new every day and I love pondering the BIG questions in animal evolution: What did our earliest ancestors on earth look like? How and when did animals evolve? Did they like to drink as much tea as I do? More...

With religion coming under increasing attack from atheists and sceptics, The Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, goes into the lion's den, putting his faith publicly on the line by debating with some of the sharpest critics of his faith. Howard Jacobson believes ritual demeans religion, Alain de Botton doubts that any one faith has the truth, Professor Colin Blakemore thinks science makes religion redundant, and Professor Lisa Jardine questions why God allows evil and suffering in this world.

Blakemore 'their are explanations & accounts that are verifiable, testable of how things happen

Sacks 'the beauty of Beethovens cannot be explained away by science explaining the music centre in the brain'

Blakemore 'wait and see what science is capable of delivering; their are many things that science has beautifully explained, for which there could not have been a conventional explanation in the past, for instance Biochemistry has explained much of what we understand about 'Life' - their is no 'life force' need to explain these things '

Sacks 'could we be anything other than what we are?

Blakemore 'I am the sum total of all the causal influences on me at the moment; events have anticedal causes; humans are not set aside from the rest of other living beings or the universe. The curious sense of a 'self' or of choice or a helmsman deciding absolutely what to do something irrespective of what the world tells them - is wrong.

'Colin Blakemore was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in June 1944. After winning a place at the King Henry VIII grammar school in Coventry, he went on to win a scholarship to study natural science at Cambridge and then completed a PhD at the University of California in Berkeley. After 11 years in the Department of Physiology at Cambridge University, he became Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford University in 1979. From 1996–2003 he was Director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience at Oxford, and was Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council (MRC) from 2003-2010.

Professor Blakemore was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (now the British Science Association) in 1997-1998 and its Chairman in 2001-2004. He has been described by the Royal Society as “one of Britain 's most influential communicators of science”, and he has been awarded many prizes from medical and scientific academies and societies. He is committed to promoting dialogue between scientists and the public, and to defending medical research using animals despite regularly receiving threats of violence from animal rights extremists. Over the years he has been a frequent contributor to radio and television programmes, including the BBC Reith Lecture in 1976 ('Mechanics of the Mind') and the 13-part BBC2 series The Mind Machine. His books for the general public include Mechanics of the Mind (for which he won the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science), Images and Understanding , Mindwaves, The Mind Machine (see 'Look Inside' page 86), Gender and Society and The Oxford Companion to the Body.

In 2004 Colin Blakemore as the new Head of the Medical Research Council, was interviewed and asked in the last question 'Do you feel there is sufficient public understanding in science? How would you encourage more?' Colin Blakemore said:-

It all depends on what one means by “understanding”. There is, contrary to received wisdom, remarkably strong enthusiasm for science amongst the general public, and considerable confidence in scientists.

In opinion polls,

three-quarters of the population said they were “amazed” by the achievements of science.

Another poll found that people admired Einstein more than David Beckham!

an annual Mori poll shows an unchanging two thirds of the public who say that they trust scientists to tell the truth.

On the other hand, the near-hysteria about such topics as

GM foods

MMR vaccination and autism reveals that the public are not well informed about the processes of science.

Understanding of risk and how to assess it is poor.

The public expect infallible pronouncements from scientists and are confused when they hear researchers expressing differences of opinion in areas of genuine uncertainty.

In my opinion, we, the researchers who benefit from public funds, have a responsibility to keep the people informed about how we spend their money.

Even more important, we must trust the public to guide us in areas of ethical concern.

But if we are to have confidence in the public’s rightful role in determining how far science can go, they must understand how science and scientists work.

Of course, busy researchers will ask why they should bother to give their precious time to public communication, when there is no professional recognition for that effort.

I think that the universities, the research councils and other funders... should acknowledge that public communication is a legitimate professional activity.

1'15": our reliance on science and crucially the scientific way of thinking has never been greater".

5' 15 - 5'50" science is very simple indeed: science is the best framework we have for understanding the universe. As long as you accept that evidence is more important than opinion, then this is the statement of the obvious. Everything we take for granted in the modern world; from atoms, to electricity, from our understanding of the stars, to medical imaging - is down to somebody being curious about the universe and using the scientific method to investigate it. The great English biologist Thomas Huxley summarised it beautifully: science is simply common sense at its best, that is, rigidly accurate in observation and merciless to fallacy in logic.7'55": science is simply the process by which we seek to understand nature.

Humanists4Science

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About Humanists4Science (Hum4Sci)

Humanists4Science (H4S) Mission "To promote, within the humanist community, the application of the scientific method to issues of concern to broader society."

H4S Vision "A world in which important decisions are made by applying the scientific method to evidence rather than according to superstition."

H4S isfor humanists with an active interest in science.We believe that science is a fundamental part of humanism but also that it should be directed to humane and ethical ends. Science is, in our view, more a method than a body of facts.

H4S take a naturalistic view and believe, like 62% of the UK population, that science, the scientific method & other evidence provides the best way to understand the universe.

Since 2008 H4S members have discussed many Humanist-Science topics in our Yahoo Group.

Jim Al-Khalili (BHA President)

Prof. Jim Al-Khalili - 11TH BHA President - On Scientific Method

'I have a rational unshakeable conviction that our universe is understandable, that mysteries are only mysteries because we have yet to figure out, the almost always logical answers. For me there is simply no room, no need, for a supernatural divine being to fill in the gaps in our understanding. We’ll get there, we’ll fill in those gaps with objective scientific truths: [with] answers that aren't subjective, because of cultural or historical whims or personal biases, but because of empirically testable and reproducible truths. We may not get the full picture, we may never get the full picture, but science allows us to get ever closer.’ Jim Al-Khalili, BHA AGM 2013

"A lot of people say science is just one way of looking at the world, at reality, and poets and musicians and, of course, people of faith, have said there are other ways. I don't buy that. For me there is an objective reality that is there and real. For a theoretical physicist who's trained in thinking about quantum mechanics, which involves the idea that by observing something you alter its nature, you have to have some sort of working definitions of reality"Jim Al-Khalili in New Humanist magazine Mar Apr 2013

Lord Taverne

Dick Taverne

Lord Taverne

Science depends on reason and regard for evidence. For me, the scientific approach lies at the heart of humanism as well as atheism. We all accept that science has made us healthier and wealthier. What has been seldom acknowledged or realised is that since the Enlightenment, which it helped to bring about, science has played an essential part in making us more civilised.

Science is the enemy of autocracy because it replaces claims to truth based on authority with those based on evidence and because it depends on the criticism of established ideas. Scientific knowledge is the enemy of dogma and ideologies and makes us more tolerant because it is tentative and provisional and does not deal in certainties. It is the most effective way of learning about the physical world and therefore erodes superstition, ignorance and prejudice, which have been causes of the denial of human rights throughout history. Science is also the enemy of narrow nationalism and tribalism and, like the arts, is one of the activities in this world that is not motivated by greed.

What can compare, for example, with the recent achievement of the Large Hadron Collider, a venture of collaboration by 10,000 scientists and engineers from 113 countries, free from bureaucratic and political interference? Those people put aside all national, political, religious and cultural differences in pursuit of truth and for the one purpose of exploring and understanding the natural world.

Without the contribution of science, which is, in my view, the rock on which atheism and humanism are built, we would be less inclined to be critical, tolerant and understanding and more prone to prejudice, bigotry and tribalism. We would be a less civilised society.

David Papineau on Materialism

'Our world is a fully material world. We don’t need to go outside Physics to understand the constitution of the Universe. Anything non-material would be epiphenomena and could never have any effect on the material world.' David Papineau (video) on Materialism

Richard Dawkins (BHA Vice-President) on Scientific Method

'Scientific method is a system whereby working assumptions may be falsified by recourse to reason and evidence.' (Photo: Chris Street, 2006)

Peter Atkins (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The scientific method is the only reliable method of achieving knowledge. It displaces ignorance without destroying wonder.'

'Science can deal with all the serious questions that have troubled mankind for millennia' Peter Atkins

'My own faith, my scientific faith, is that there is nothing that the scientific method cannot illuminate and elucidate." Peter Atkins

Stephen Fry (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Reason is almost akin to superstition, ... reason must be tested, testing is the very basis of science.'

Matt Ridley (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it.'

Stephen Law (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'Empirical science is possibly the only tool ... for understanding the world around us'.

Lewis Wolpert (BHA Vice President) on Scientific Method

'Science is the best way to understand the world, for any set of observations, there is only one correct explanation. Science is value-free, as it explains the world as it is. Ethical issues arise only when science is applied to technology – from medicine to industry.'

Harry Kroto (BHA Distinguished Supporter) on Scientific Method

'The methods of science are manifestly effective, having made massive humanitarian contributions to society. It is this very effectiveness which the purveyors of mystical philosophies attack, because they recognise in it the chief threat to the belief-based source of their power and financial reward.'